Pages

Friday, 28 June 2013

Raising Arriva's failure to provide good bus services in parliament

Yesterday was the monthly transport questions in the House of Commons and I got the chance to press the Minister to try and help improve the woeful 685 run by Arriva. Norman Baker , who is on eof hte best of the Liberal Ministers replied. We are going to set up a meeting with the Minister and Arriva; several North East Labour MPs, including Phil Wilson, MP for Sedgefield, are also very concerned at Aarriva's performance and came up to me afterwards and expressed similar concerns.

Guy Opperman (Hexham, Conservative)

The quality of bus travel between Newcastle, Hexham and Carlisle has suffered terribly due to the mismanagement of Arriva. Specifically, many of my constituents encounter great problems with the service being perpetually late or even buses running out of fuel. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that the next time he meets Arriva, he will urge it to improve the quality of this service?
Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 27 June 2013, c445)

Norman Baker (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Regional and Local Transport), Transport; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)I am always keen to improve the quality of bus services for passengers. The satisfaction level of bus travel as measured by the independent Passenger Focus is 84%, and in Tyne and Wear, for example, it is 87%. If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about particular issues in his local area, I would be happy to pursue them with him and the relevant bus company.